[doublecross]

I think we should steer away from languages themselves and towards something like echidna's idea of the countries in their own language.

I have a couple of differences:

Spoiler (Rollover to View):

The World Fact Book gives Georgia - Sal'art'velo South Korea - Han’guk (short form rather than long form) Depending on whether UK is U(K), B(ritain) or G(reat Britain) and the US is U(S) or A(merica), we have the initials (in alphabetical order of their English names): SAOBTEMGESGEYNAHLLMNNURSE(U/G/B)(U/A)O I can get promising words from this such as: THE GLOSS NUMBERS MONEY LANGUAGE (actually a complete anagram), but no actual well-know phrase or saying yet.

[echidna]

oliverkeers13 wrote:

Am I mistaken in thinking that all modern languages derive from Sanscrit?

Short answer - yes. Sanskrit has already been tried and is wrong (can't believe I have to say this to you but search is your friend ).

For the record, Sanskrit is one of the oldest Indo-European languages but as it belongs to the Indo-Iranian branch of the family it isn't a direct antecedent of any of the languages under consideration. It is related to and possibly shared a common ancestor with the other I-E languages - Spanish, Portugese, French, Dutch, English and Albania, however, it isn't directly related to any of the other African or Asian languages in question.

[oliverkeers13]

Am I mistaken in thinking that all modern languages derive from Sanscrit? I seem to remember that most European, African, and Asian languages come from it, and maybe they all do.

[echidna]

really, just

Anyway...

Hunting4Treasure wrote:

Has anyone tried grouping all the languages? Like English, Hispanic, Asian, French, German, etc... maybe just European?... Then take the first letter of those groups... ?

Those aren't technically language groups - I don't know if this will help at all but the classifications for the predominant language of each country on the map are as follows:

Indo-European - Romance - Spanish
Indo-European - Romance - Portugese
Indo-European - Romance - French
Indo-European - Germanic - English
Indo European - Germanic - Dutch
Indo-European - Albanian - Albanian
Afro-Asiatic - East Cushitic - Somali
Afro-Asiatic - East Cushitic - Afar
Afro-Asiatic - Semitic - Arabic
Afro-Asiatic - Semitic - Hebrew
Caucasian - South Caucasian - Georgian
Slavic - East Slavic - Russian
Turkic - West Turkic - Chagatay - Uzbek
Tai-Kadai - Tai - Lao
Japonic - Japanese
Korean - Korean (as I said in an earlier post it's a language isolate - it doesn't belong to any family)

I find the idea that we're looking for native languages hugely problematic because of the sheer number of them. In New World countries it's usually the case that indigenous languages are pretty marginalised whilst the dominant language has almost always been imported from Europe. In the US, for example, there are 296 Native American languages but the most widely used of these - Navajo - is only spoken by approx. 148,500 people. In a nation of nearly 300 million it would be a bit of a stretch to call such a minority language the mother tongue of the whole country.
In the Old World the migration of various peoples at different points in history means that no country has only one native language. The UK, despite being a relatively small group of islands, has at least 10 native languages (English, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Irish Gaelic, Manx, Cornish, Scots, Norn, Angloromani and Welsh Romani, if you're interested) so imagine how many Russia has (actually, it's 105).

I have the feeling that we're making this much too complicated (not like us, I know ) and we're missing something more straightforward - though quite what that is I don't yet know.

[Hunting4Treasure]

UKver2.0, ROFLMAO!
Now that you mention it, that's what I was taught, too... I just forgot.
This card is driving me nuts-ier!

[UKver2.0]

Hunting4Treasure wrote:

why do we call Native Americans 'Indians'?

I was taught this bit about Christopher Columbus trying to find a safe passage to India. There was all this trouble with the Muslims and the old land based trade routes were all blocked up. Some countries went with the sea route around Africa, but Christopher Columbus thought to go straight west thinking he could get to India that way. Supposedly he thought he reached India and therefore called the natives Indians. I don't know if that is how it really went, but a quick search through the wikipedia confirms it. Of course with the wikipedia that could mean that a former classmate of mine was the last to edit that page.

[ambskunk]

I'm pretty sure that only North America has native Indians (well maybe apart from India ). In most other countries they are refered to as indigenous people. I have no idea why they are called Indians though.

This has got to be the way of seperating the US from the UK (or is it really Wales, Scotland, Nth Ireland and England? - they are considered seperate countries aren't they?), although of course there are many different tribes of native indians. It may be the largest tribe (Navajo I think) that we are after for the US.

[Hunting4Treasure]

The first thing that comes to mind when I hear the word 'native' is 'Indians'. This is probably a stupid question, but do all countries have 'native Indians'? Something else I never thought about before, but why do we call Native Americans 'Indians'? May be a history lesson in there somewhere, but was it first thought that they originally came from India or the West Indies?

OK, I got off-track, but 'Indians' are still running around in in my mind... and they're getting restless!

[ambskunk]

It looks like Hawaii should be located off the edge of the card. Its position relative to New Caledonia would also mean it couldn't be on the other side of the card.

There are a few things that bother me about the card:
The clue refers to 'going native' implying that we need to be looking at the native or indigenous people of each country.

Thats fine for countries like Russia and Japan where pretty much the whole population is 'native' and speak a native language. But when you get to former colonial countries that may have a population comprising of many tribes or groups (like Liberia - 16 indigenous ethnic groups according to wiki) and no dominant native language it gets tricky. These countries commonly have an official language that is European and you'd hardly call native.

My favourite is New Calendonia which wiki states isn't even a country but an overseas territory.

I was thinking that the answer may come from ordering the letters of countries/languages/something by the number of people in each country speaking the (dominant?) native language.

[Hunting4Treasure]

Fuseunderground wrote:

If you take the country of origin of the languages (mother country?) ‘I’ for Ireland ‘A’ for Arabia (or Arab lands) ‘N’ for Netherlands This reduces the amount of countries Then with the first letters you can spell ‘Singular Speak’ unfortunately with a ‘J’ left over. Whether this points to Japan, or is going in completely the wrong direction. Who knows? I hope this helps someone. Rich

How about 'A' for Asia... Wouldn't that include Japan?
*edit*
Or 'F' for Far East... ?

*edit again*
Has anyone tried grouping all the languages? Like English, Hispanic, Asian, French, German, etc... maybe just European?... Then take the first letter of those groups... ?

[Hunting4Treasure]

Rifflesby wrote:

<snip> Though if it helps, I've just noticed that while the continental US and Alaska are shown on the map, I see no sign of Hawaii.

That's bothered me from the beginning.

Thinking out loud, regarding the US...
1. Why not just show the Continental US?
2. Why include Alaska?
3. Why not include Hawaii?
4. Alaska *looks* like a separate country, but it is a state. If we're to just look at countries, I would think Alaska would be ignored, as it appears Hawaii has been... Or include them *both*.
5. What is so special about Alaska?
6. Or, what is so unimportant about Hawaii, to not include it?
7. Both states were admitted to the Union in 1959; Alaska (#49) on January 3, Hawaii (#50) on August 21
8. What is unique about the US, that would lead us on the right path for the other countries?
9. Do all these countries have something in common that occured *before* August 21, 1959?
10. Scary thought, but was it a *mistake* to not include Hawaii?

[Lilian]

sorry not on there is what i meant to say should read my posts more carefully

[UKver2.0]

Lilian wrote:

...and there's Portugal on there

What did you mean by this? Cause Portugal isn't on there.

[Lilian]

There are to many countries missing for it to be a certain
"mother tongue " ie nostratic ect ive been trying to think of a new thread
such as foodstuff, drink, colours of flags but can't seem to get somthing that links them all but i will keep trying

[Lilian]

yes i thought after i posted that would be the same for music & and alot more
"edit" and there's Portugal on there